Latest News from The Bookseller

2014 profit drop for Lagardere Publishing Hachette UK’s parent company Lagardere has released its results for 2014, showing that profits at Lagardere Publishing, which includes Hachette UK as well as other publishing divisions across the world, were €197m, down by 12% or €26m year-on-year. Sales for 2014 came to €2,004m, down 4.5% from the year before. Lagardere said the drop in its Publishing division was "due mainly to the contraction of activity in General Literature in France and in English-speaking countries,” and added: “The implementation of cost-cutting nonetheless helped limit its effects.”

John Smith’s triumphs at APS awards John Smith’s Bookshop chain has triumphed at the Academic, Professional & Specialist Awards, scooping all four titles it was eligible for. Meanwhile Oxford University Press has won Publisher of the Year yet again.

New Margaret Atwood novel this autumn A new standalone novel from Margaret Atwood will be published by Bloomsbury in September. The Heart Goes Last, Atwood's first standalone novel since the Man Booker Prize-winning The Blind Assassin in 2010, will be published on 24th September, the day that will also see Virago publish the paperback edition of Atwood's most recent short story collection, Stone Mattress. Virago will publish The Heart Goes Last in Paperback next year.

Godfray warns on library e-lending Free e-lending in libraries could cause "serious damage" to the bookselling industry, Booksellers Association (BA) chief Tim Godfray has said. Speaking as part of the Chief Executive Panel at the BA's Academic, Professional and Specialist Conference at Surrey's Wotton House yesterday (11th March), Godfray said free loans of digital books to consumers for minimum effort had serious ramifications.

Knausgaard and Murakami on Foreign Fiction longlist Karl Ove Knausgaard and Haruki Murakami are among the authors whose work features on the longlist for the 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Meanwhile books originally written in German take five of the 15 spots, and Quercus has three titles on the selection. The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize sets out to honour contemporary fiction in translation, with the £10,000 prize money divided equally between author and translator, recognising the importance of the translator in their ability to bridge the gap between languages and cultures.

Shantaram sequel to be published in October Little, Brown will publish a sequel to Gregory David Roberts' Shantaram this October, 10 years after the release of the original. The Mountain Shadow will get a global publication on 13th October, with Little, Brown publishing across the UK and Commonwealth, and Pan Macmillan releasing it in Australia.

IWM director: 'difficult decisions due to funding cuts' The Imperial War Museum has defended its decision to change how it runs its library and archives in a response to parliamentary concern at the moves. In a letter from the IWM director general Diane Lees to the Culture Media and Sport committee (CMS), she asserts that the changes have come as a result of "significant reductions to government funding".

More Ella for Yellow Kite Hodder & Stoughton imprint Yellow Kite has bought two more books by Ella Woodward, author of Deliciously Ella, the biggest selling cookbook of 2015 so far. Publisher Liz Gough bought UK and Commonwealth rights to the new books from Cathryn Summerhayes at WME. The second book by Woodward will be Deliciously Ella Every Day, and feature more than 100 “easy-to-make, healthy plant-based recipes designed to fit into busy lifestyles”.

MJ buys debut in six-figure pre-empt Michael Joseph has acquired a debut novel byUS author Alexandra Oliva in a six-figure pre-empt ahead of the rest of the world. Editorial director Jessica Leeke bought UK and Commonwealth rights to the book, titled The Last One, from Caspian Dennis at Abner Stein on behalf of Lucy Carson at the Friedrich Agency. The book has since sold in 17 countries and was the subject of a major auction in the US, where it was acquired by Ballantine Bantam Dell.

Mantle buys second novel from Diffenbaugh Mantle has bought the second novel by Vanessa Diffenbaugh, author of The Language of Flowers (Pan). Associate publisher Sam Humphreys acquired UK rights to We Never Asked for Wings from Antony Topping at Greene and Heaton, on behalf of Sally Wofford-Girand at Union Literary.

State investigators interview Harper Lee Investigators for the State of Alabama have interviewed Harper Lee and staff at the nursing home where she lives following at least one complaint of potential elder abuse, linked to the forthcoming release of the author’s second novel Go Set a Watchman, it has been reported. Go Set a Watchman, a sequel to the bestselling To Kill a Mockingbird and written before that book, will be released simultaneously in the UK and the US this summer.